The Mothersucker

It's been 2 weeks! And a very taxing fortnight it was. With no confinement nanny, no parents or in laws helping, we are pretty much on our own. Also, I am breastfeeding the baby totally so that makes it really tough the first week but things are starting to look up.

#2 now has a name, it's Dylan Seow and he is such a cutie (in his parents' eyes at least) :) He is a little mothersucker literally but not a very good one I am afraid. His mouth is so cute and small, that he doesn't suckle the areola when nursing thus giving me terribly sore nipples :*( I clench my teeth in anticipation of the pain each time he feeds and this is at least once every 2 to 3 hours. ouch ouch! Breasts are also like rocks as the supply far exceeds the demand. Sigh, how did I do it for 21 months with Kayden?!? Am contemplating a visit to a lactation consultant if things don't get better this week.

Everyone has been asking me for photos and I am sorry it is taking so long as I hardly have time for anything else. The b&w roll of film in the Lomo has not been processed yet so that one will be sometime later. I brought home the D200 when I was discharged (yes, i went back to the studio 2 days after i had a baby!) and have been shooting baby with the 50mm only. It's so hard to catch him with his eyes open as he is only active in the evenings and i have no light to work with by then.

Anyway, here are some shots of him while sunbathing (for the slight jaundice that he has):




(the daddy screamed at me for putting him on the grass but don't you think it's a nice photo? hehe)

and then there were 2

You know, I think I overestimate myself sometimes. When my due date for #2 was estimated as 12 June, I was still confident that I can make it through the Motherhood Exhibition from 5-8 June. Which I did!

Thinking that since Kayden had to be induced on the EDD, I expected this pregnancy to be similar. I was hoping for something dramatic though, like waterbag bursting or waking up in the middle of the night with painful contractions. Right up till the end of the exhibition, I was still taking bookings for shoots and on Monday (the day after the exhibition ended), it was still work as usual. On Tuesday, I brought the girls to Cathay Photo to get some new lights and I was contemplating getting the Lensbaby to shoot my delivery (ya funny right, how to shoot when in labour. Well, there's epidural!) but it was sold out! After we lug the equipment back to the studio, I got ready to go home as usual and expected to come in tomorrow as there was a shoot and also I needed to tie up some loose ends and bring home my camera etc. Little did I know that I would never make it to the studio the next day!

Here's the story:

11 June 2008
7am - bloody discharge, started to time contractions and when they were about 9mins apart i took a shower while Erwin prepared Kayden for child care.

820am - left the house, waited for the lift and it broke down!!! my 5yrs living here there has been no problem with the lift and it HAD to happen when i am in labour! jeeze :s i clumsily walked down 8 storeys of stairs and we zoomed off. Erwin dropped K in school hurriedly and then it started to rain and there was massive traffic on the CTE. i panicked when the contractions became 6mins apart.

930am - finally reached the hospital and i went straight to labour ward. 2.5cm dilated (DAMN FREAKING PAINFUL when this midwife checked the dilation, wanted to slap her).

11am - epidural has been administered and waited for dilation to reach 10cm. didn't happen for some time until...

4something pm - felt sharp pain on right side lower pelvic area, told Erwin to get the nurse as i've never experienced this pain before. she came in and checked dilation and said i was fully dilated! Eunice came in and said can start pushing. So exciting, up till then I still wasn't mentally prepared. Only when i was pushing and she said the head is visible did it really dawn on me that i am really going to see my second born today! :D i pushed like crazy, this one seems harder to squeeze out than the first one.

435pm - baby out, big phew! he is 4kg exactly, 55cm tall and 36cm head.

some of you may think he's big but his brother was bigger at 4.475kg, however Gor Gor is 54cm, 1cm shorter kekeke, head size the same.

here's a picture of didi (taken on my iPhone as the D200 was still in the studio):

isn't he just so precious? :) the moment i saw him, all my woes of not having a girl disappeared as he is just so cute la! haha!

I would like to thank all who came to visit me and also those who sent us gifts, hampers and flowers! THANK YOU so so much! :)

Motherhood Exhibition 2008

It's The Studio Loft's 3rd year participating at the Motherhood Magazine Exhibition, the largest parenting extravaganza of the year. This year seems kind of slow at the moment. We're halfway into our second day here and i am typing this entry, slow huh? ;) Am hoping things will pick up this evening and over the weekend.

This year, we are sharing our booth with Itsy Bitsy Me and Wink to Learn. So far so good for them as well :) We decided not to bring down too many things this year since we are only getting 1/3 of the booth size. However i brought down the 24inch iMac to play a slideshow of our favourite photos over the years and you know what? It's a great traffic grabber! Oh but sometimes we find some lecherous men leering at the nude Bloom shots :S

One of my favourite clients *shameless plug coming up* Kristal and Martin has a booth here this year. They have a new prenatal education product called the BabyPlus but they said unfortunately it's too late for me to use it as i am too far along already kekeke :D Maybe for #3 if ever i decide to have another one!

The number of clients who came by our booth to say hi this year compared to previous years is an indication of how much we've grown and it's so nice to see our Little Big Shots all grown up or our Bloom mummies with their little bundle of joy :) Oh and some of our friendly competitors dropped by as well, Alvin from Dphotofolio (who has a booth here too) and Hart and Polo from Tomato.

This is our 2008 brochure printed for the exhibition. This year i decided to go with happy faces/bodies :





edited to add:
being the brainless klutz that i am, i forgot to bring home the envelope with all the takings for the fair on the first night :( but i think my unborn baby must have been watching over mummy as when i went back on the second day, the envelope was still under the desk, PHEW! :D

A friendly pow wow with the competitors

Last saturday, i received an email from David of Foto-U (one of our competitors). Four other competitors were included in the email, namely Tomato, Dphotofolio, Kopimei and Funshotz. We are all fellow advertisers on the Singapore Motherhood Forum.

Anyway the email was a call to all of us to come together and stop giving softcopies (negatives) to clients without charging for them. It was a valid call as in the long run, we will all be losing out this way. However it was funny that it was coming from David as his studio was the one that started the practise of giving out all softcopies from their sessions :p Anyway we all decided to meet up for a friendly networking session on thursday and the venue was my studio.

Shirley, our Kopimei arrived first with Hart from Tomato. David came some time later and last was Alvin from Dphotofolio. It was the first time i am meeting everyone with the exception of David whom i met once before when he contacted The Studio Loft for a joint promotion with Foto-U. Everyone was nice and friendly and we touched on issues like our business models, dealing with difficult clients, how to better improve workflow etc.

I am glad we can all be friendly with each other and help pass each other clients if we cannot do the shoots ourselves. Hart mentioned that he does not enjoy maternity shoots and have been referring some clients to me and likewise in my heavily pregnant state i am not fit for outdoor shoots and will refer to him any clients requiring this service.

We all agreed that the meeting was a fruitful one and decided to make this a bi-annual affair :)